One year after the most publicized initial stock offering in history, everyone's favorite search engine is balancing innovation and success with a healthy dose of frustration. Google's business model has proven a success, and it continues to lead the league in innovation. Product releases have picked up dramatically as the company engages in a full-blown arms race against Yahoo and Microsoft. But Google is also feeling growing pains. It added an average of 10 employees every business day in the last quarter. The 4,183 odd employees , can no longer assume that colleagues know everything that's going on in the company. As everyone expected, Google is turning into a huge corporation.
Internet advertising is taking off at long last, accounting for billions of dollars in revenue across the Internet. And Google alone accounts for about 15 percent of that revenue nationally, Add in services such as global mapping and imaging, as well as an international expansion that involves the burgeoning Chinese market, and one can see why Google is expanding by leaps and bounds. To cope with the growth, Google has reorganized much of its advertising operation. Staff and clients have been broken down by industry and revenue. Marissa Mayer, director of consumer Web products, reports that "We're in a state now where we do 16 or 17 (releases) a week," factoring in new features for international users. On the flip side, without getting permission from broadcasters, Google started recording their programming. It then displayed still images from the shows and snippets of closed captioning as search results. Teams of Google employees have met with broadcasters to discuss paying for the video by charging users, and sharing advertising revenue. Google recently reported stopping printed books. Through the growth, Google has stayed committed to making its search engine results more relevant. Analysts believe that Google is slowly taking aim at Microsoft's software business, a potential growth area bigger than online advertising. Google has spurred traditional media companies to try to play catch up. Through extra investment and acquisitions, those firms are hoping to adapt to a shift in advertising spending to the Web from print and television before its too late.
Category :Google
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